


take my mind and take my pain

by mind_boggling



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 22:21:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12945246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mind_boggling/pseuds/mind_boggling
Summary: She breathed out a little in relief. Of safety, and of her lack of pain. Her ribs stopped hurting, the lower part of her back where the huge bruise appeared was healing, and she was becoming whole again. And sitting in front of this man created in bloodshed and pain and suffering, was where she was meant to be.The bruised man held out a hand. And she took it.





	take my mind and take my pain

**Author's Note:**

> soulmates au where bruises/marks of your soulmate begin to appear on your body until you find them, and they disappear

Karen first noticed a bruise on her left elbow. She’d showered, walked, rather ran, along the corridor into her room to avoid commotion with her roommates, and began undressing from her bathrobe.

She often stared at her body in the mirror for quite a while after showering- looking at how everything was that bit _off_. Nothing was as busty or as beautiful and thick as her other roommates and while they all complained and wanted to look like her, it was in fact the opposite for her.

As she ran her hands through her hair, the bruise became visible. Purples and greens patterned on her pale skin, and she stopped what she was doing and examined it. She poked it. She stretched the skin around it. It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t noticeable, it was just there. Trying to recall where she might have gotten it, she dismissed it entirely.

It was on her mind for the next few days, and she sometimes felt it subconsciously pulsating. She found herself holding her elbow as her arms folded during a meeting, her index finger circling the bruise, still wondering how it appeared, where it came from.

The thought crossed her mind. She didn’t usually believe in those kinds of things. It’d been a conspiracy at most— but more and more theorems were being proven. She didn’t know what to believe. When it came to love, she never did.

—

He’d been known to be a violent man, ever since he was young. His father was the antagonist of his life, constantly drawing the anger out of him and causing him to self destruct right in front of him. He hated it, hated himself more for letting it affect him the way it did. 

Having gotten wind of a downtown robbery, he’d redirected himself onto the route of the bank in question- the masked thieves came charging down the alleyway and he was waiting. The hand cannon made itself known in his pant pocket, and he grabbed onto the nearest thief.

He put up a good fight, the thief, but the assailant was no match him. Blood on his hands, coating every inch of calloused skin that was on show, spraying across his face, pain bearing through his teeth, anger, seething, up and up and up. An elbow in the face, a jab to the throat and loss of breath. 

They hit him from every angle, but not one of them walked out conscious. Four in total, he carried them one by one to a dumpster, hiding them inside before they awoke. Bags of money in hand, he dropped it outside the bank’s doors before the cops arrived. Never seen, never there.

He was always victorious, but it was never satisfying for him.

—

Karen didn’t notice the second bruise, rather, one of her friends did. The bottom of her back, just right of the bridge, a bright purple, almost infected looking bruise. It’s edges were green, blue, even pink, and it was more painful than ever.

She didn’t know where she got it. She had no clue in the slightest. So telling her roommate she’d taken up self defence classes was the only option. After taking a photograph of the mark on her back, she excused herself from the gathering of her roommates and went to her room. 

Painfully crawling into her bed, she pulled her laptop to her legs and punched her theory into the search engine. Hours of trolling through fake news and articles full of conspiracies commenced, and it wasn’t until her eyes were drooping that one headline stood out to her.

**_SOULMATES? TWO STRANGERS MEET THROUGH SAME SET OF BRUISES_ **

Her eyes flickered from the laptop screen to her phone, the image of the bruise upon her back. She recalled all events within the past few days, knowing in her mind that nothing could have caused it. 

She couldn’t be crazy- she couldn’t be. There just had to be someone out there in just as much pain as she was.

—

It wasn’t painful. It never was, not anymore.

He’d gotten very used to it very quickly, and had become a multitasker in that he stitched himself up whilst also washing himself of blood. It was hard at first, to act like everything was okay and to move along like normal- but he got there. It became swifter and easier, and more believable.

He hadn’t seen this one coming. Which was a surprise to him. Once the blast had hit him, the impact had been enough to affect his performance. He didn’t do the damage he had wanted. He was met with a pang of disappointment, he had to admit, but he was glad to collapse on the bed in his trailer whilst the adrenaline pumped through his veins.

That next morning he stood in the cracked mirror whilst he examined the damage done to his body. His skin was painted in bruises, patches of blood where skin had torn, gashes that go deeper than they should. His bones ached, and his broken skull shuddered in its fractured pieces.

When he stared in the mirror at his violently beaten body, he wondered if there would ever be someone to fix. Even if it was there in the back of his mind, there was still a little voice saying it. And part of him really wanted to believe it.

—

They say third time’s a charm. 

Karen was laid up in a hospital bed, bandages around her chest. She’d woken up with the pain pulsating through her ribs, and the pace at which she could move was not at all work friendly. She’d tried to brush it off, but once she’d doubled over on the street, someone had called an ambulance.

Her doctor was young, a student in his last year of medical school, and he kept stumbling his words. She was angry, and constantly trying to get out of the bed but being forced back and threatened with restraints. Having told him her symptoms, he’d ordered her multiple scans of her ribs and blood tests- to be on the safe side.

When her scans came back negative, and she was cleared with having nothing wrong with her ribs whatsoever, it was clear as day that what she’d thought was true. That there was someone out there, getting closer to her, ready to cross onto her path, with the same pain she had.

It was bizarre. And it scared her. But she kept it to herself. She feigned her comfort to get out of the hospital quicker, skipped a taxi and forced herself to walk home- because now it wasn’t psychological. It was real, and oh, so close.

—

Word on the street signalled a corrupt mob boss was planning to scope Hell’s Kitchen with bombs. 

He’d gathered everything he’d got, physically and mentally, and he’d picked out individual places with good vantage points in relation to the location of the bombing. Somehow, he’d gotten hold of the plans and knew where it would take place, and he was more ready than ever.

It was hard as it lay on his conscience, knowing how many people would be walking among the streets that’d soon be in smithereens. He’d seen streets coated in rubble more times than he’d care to remember, and he’d witnessed pain and bloodshed too often to know peace again. 

His ribs were still broken, but he was beyond caring at that point. They were healing, and he’d gotten his hands on painkillers to ease it as the days went by. They were running out, but again, he was beyond caring. Caring about anything lately was too much effort for him.

Except for maybe this. It was just about the only thing he had left to live for.

—

The pain in her ribs was diminishing, and for the first time in a week, Karen took a walk to her favourite coffee shop. It was what she saw as a nice treat, until the ground shook beneath her.

Peoples shrieks around her filled her ears, people clutching onto one another as smoke clouded the air and inhabited their lungs. She found it hard to breathe, falling to the ground as the pain in her ribs caused her to double over once again. Rubble began to clutter the streets, buildings falling, and right before her eyes, people dying. 

Crawling across the pavement, she tried her best to make it to shelter. Any kind of clearer air, somewhere where she could let her pain ride its wave and leave her body, somewhere to stop her heart from pounding wilding in her chest. But instead, she came face to face with a man in a black mask, holding a gun towards her. Eyes widening, she was sure she would die. 

The blood splattered over her face as the assailant dropped dead right in front of her. She screamed as his skull slammed into the ground, lurching back onto her hands, ribs pulsating with pain. And there he stood. A man covered in bruises, bloodshed and anger written across his face. But as he looked at her, his expression softened. 

She breathed out a little in relief. Of safety, and of her lack of pain. Her ribs stopped hurting, the lower part of her back where the huge bruise appeared was healing, and she was becoming whole again. And sitting in front of this man created in bloodshed and pain and suffering, was where she was meant to be. 

The bruised man held out a hand. And she took it.

**Author's Note:**

>  **title:** song lyrics from ' _heal_ ' by _tom odell_
> 
> find me elsewhere:
> 
>  **twitter:** vanlangs  
>  **tumblr:** bisexualieberman


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